Jacob Yates & the Pearly Gate Lock Pickers – Luck

This might be Jacob Yates & the Pearly Gate Lock Pickers’ debut full-length, but they’ve got hefty boots to fill, what with Uncle John & Whitelock missed to the tune of an ‘18th best Scottish album of the last decade’ accolade in these very pages. Said boots would, we imagine, be black with a bit of a heel and, if the theatrical extravagance can be excused, perhaps a spur clinking at the back, so as to reflect Luck’s DNA: a bit rock n roll, a bit rockabilly, pretty dark but with a mischievous grin.

Grinderman are sometime aural soulmates, with Yates growling like a Weegie Cave on album centre-piece Mary Hell’s haunted strut, but it’s the closing When You Left Me’s tale of bereavement that will floor those expecting an uncomplicated good time. Yet amidst the finale's mourning, there’s room for some jet-black humour – a balancing act few manage so adroitly. [Chris Buckle]